Puducherry Election Date 2026: Full schedule, voting date, result and full details | India News
Polling will be held for all 30 seats of the 16th Puducherry Legislative Assembly.Addressing a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that elections in four states and one union territory must be conducted in a free, fair and violence-free manner. He said the Election Commission would take strict action against any attempt at violence or incitement and ensure greater transparency in the counting process and declaration of results.
Puducherry Election 2026: Key Dates
For Puducherry, elections will be held in one phase on April 9, while the results will be declared on May 4. The union territory will go to polls along with Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.The EC has announced voting in all 30 assembly constituencies in Puducherry, where around 9.44 lakh voters are eligible to cast their votes.
Voters and Polling Stations in Puducherry
According to data shared by the Election Commission, Puducherry has around 4.43 lakh male voters, 5 lakh female voters and 139 third gender voters, taking the total electorate to around 9.44 lakh.Among them, 54 centenarian voters, 6,034 voters aged 85 or above and 12,204 persons with disabilities (PwD) in the union territory. It has 23,033 first-time voters in the age group of 18 to 19 years, around 1.87 lakh voters in the age group of 20-29 years and 328 service voters.Polling will be held across 1,099 polling stations, including 610 in urban areas and 489 in rural areas. The EC said the average number of electors per polling station in Puducherry is 859, which falls in the range of 750-900 across the five polling-mandated zones.
The commission also said Puducherry would have 30 model polling stations, 60 women-run polling stations and four PwD-run polling stations. Importantly, 100 percent webcasting will be done at polling stations.
What the Election Commission said
CEC Gyanesh Kumar said a total of 17.4 crore voters are eligible to vote in the five assembly elections of 824 constituencies. Across four states and one union territory, polling will be held at around 2.19 lakh polling stations, with around 25 lakh election officials deployed.Kumar said the total number of voters across the five constituencies is equal to the population of countries like Australia, France, South Africa, Germany and Canada. He further said that clean voter list is the basis of democracy and emphasized that no eligible voter should be excluded, no ineligible voter should be included.The CEC added that representatives of electoral bodies from 20 countries would visit electoral states to observe India’s electoral process, which it described as a “festival of democracy”.
What happened in Puducherry Election 2021?
The last assembly elections in Puducherry were held in 2021, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a simple majority. N Rangaswamy of the All India NR Congress (AINRC) was sworn in as Chief Minister for the fourth time.In that election, the NDA won 16 seats with a vote share of 44.2 percent, while the UPA won eight seats.Party-wise, AINRC emerged as the largest party with 10 seats and 26.2 percent vote share. DMK won six seats with 18.8 percent vote share, while BJP also won six seats with 13.8 percent vote share. Congress won two seats with 15.9 percent vote share.
NDA’s 2026 seat sharing plan
Ahead of the 2026 elections, the AINRC-BJP alliance has already finalized its seat-sharing arrangements. Under the sources, AINRC will contest 16 seats, while the BJP-led alliance will contest 14 seats.The alliance said it is also in talks with the AIADMK. AIADMK was given five seats out of BJP’s quota in the previous elections.
Puducherry Election 2026 Result Date
Puducherry Assembly Elections 2026 results will be declared on May 4, when it will be counted along with four other state elections.
